Molecular breast imaging (MBI) typically involves the injection of a radiotracer into a patient wherein the radiotracer is carried by the bloodstream throughout the patient's body while emitting high-energy gamma photons which can be detected by a detection and imaging system, such as a system of cadmium zinc tellurium (CZT)-based detectors. Nuclear imaging systems (also called molecular imaging systems) work by detecting the distribution of gamma ray emanations throughout the patient's body or from within a specific region of interest (ROI). Areas where the gamma ray emanations are remarkably higher than would be the case for normal tissue at that area indicate an increased amount of uptake of the radiotracer in that tissue, possibly indicating cancerous tissue, while areas where the gamma ray emanations are remarkably lower than would be the case for normal tissue at that area indicate a decreased amount of uptake of radiotracer in that tissue area, possibly indicating necrotic or dead tissue. Thus, MBI utilizes nuclear/molecular imaging focused on the breast and surrounding ROIs (e.g., the axillary lymph nodes), primarily to detect or screen for breast cancer.
In conventional MBI workflows, it can take a long time to gather sufficient gamma photon counts to produce a suitable image. Typically, an acquisition or scan runs for a predetermined amount of time while the imaging system accumulates gamma photon counts. After the predetermined amount of time elapses, the imaging system stops accumulating gamma photon counts. One approach for reducing the amount of time that an acquisition or scan takes includes displaying an image of the photon counts as they accumulate. An operator of the imaging system can stop the acquisition when he or she decides that a sufficient amount of emission data is accumulated. Such an approach is based on the subjective qualitative evaluation of the image by the operator. It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a quantitative method for evaluating the sufficiency of accumulated emission data for diagnostic purposes.